Taxonomic and Biodiversity Databases

AlgaeBase Literature provides information on algae that includes terrestrial, marine and freshwater organisms. At present, the data for the marine algae, particularly seaweeds, are the most complete.

Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) provides information and pictures of all species known to science with the aim to increase awareness and understanding of living nature through an Encyclopedia of Life that gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible and trusted digital resource.

FishBase is a relational database collating fish information for research scientists, fisheries managers, and zoologists offering a wide range of information on all fish species currently known in the world: taxonomy, biology, trophic ecology, life history, and uses, as well as historical data reaching back to 250 years.

Hexacorallians of the World is a compilation of publications concerning taxonomy, nomenclature, and geographic distribution of extant hexacorallians.

Review publications

Advances in Marine Biology (available electronically via ScienceDirect or in print from 1963 onwards with shelfmark SE.I/Gb.15)
First published in 1963 under the founding editorship of Sir Frederick S. Russell, FRS, the serial publishes in-depth and up-to-date reviews on a wide range of topics which will appeal to postgraduates and researchers in marine biology, fisheries science, ecology, zoology and biological oceanography. Eclectic volumes in the series are supplemented by thematic volumes.

Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review (available in print from 1963 onwards with shelfmark SE.i:Gb.12)
Provides a yearly review covering the basics of marine research, special topics, and emerging areas. It features contributors who are actively engaged in biological, chemical, geological, and physical aspects of marine science.

Literature repositories

Aquatic Commonsis a thematic digital repository covering the natural marine, estuarine/brackish and fresh-water environments. The repository contains a growing collection of published and unpublished research, organizational publications, and other scholarly materials contributed by researchers, librarians and their institutions.

Biodiversity Heritage Library provides full text books digitised from ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom offering over two million volumes of biodiversity literature collected over 200 years to support the work of scientists, researchers, and students in their home institutions and throughout the world. It is especially useful for full-text of articles going back as far as 1480 that are out of copyright.

bioRxiv is a free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences. It is operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a not-for-profit research and educational institution.

PlyMSEA is the shared, open access repository for research output from the following three organisations based in Plymouth: The Marine Biological Association (MBA), Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS).

Agricola indexes articles, books and technical reports (including material related to aquaculture) from the US National Library of Agriculture.

Conference Proceedings Citation Index - Science is part of the Web of Knowledge database. It indexes the published literature of the most significant conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia workshops and conventions in a wide range of disciplines in science and technology.

Dimensions.ai established in early 2018 a new bibliographic search tool with link to full texts, open access versions where available, citations and altmetric scores.

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) provides access to full-text, peer-reviewed scholarly articles from around the world. To search for articles on a topic, click on Find Articles on left side of DOAJ screen.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) This database allows you to identify the scholarly journals which are the most prominent in a specific area of research. It can serve to familiarize you with many of the journal titles available in marine biology.

OAIster is an online combined bibliographic catalogue of open access material gathered from international digital libraries, institutional repositories, and online journals using the self-service WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway. Full-text access to theses, journal articles, conference proceedings, and many other resources that are freely available from electronic collections around the world.

Pub Med provides access to a database of bibliographic information drawn primarily from MEDLINE and PREMEDLINE. MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine's premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, dentistry, nursing, veterinary medicine, the health care system and the preclinical sciences. The MEDLINE file contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from approximately 3,900 current biomedical journals with about 9 million records dating back to 1966.

ScienceDirect is Elsevier’s journal portal. It provides subscription based full-text scientific and medical research journal articles and e-books back to 1995, and indexes pre-1995 articles back to the first issue of each journal.

Unpaywall is a widget and allows you to find open access copies of articles from repositories. Once the widget is installed a clickable green icon will appear when you come across a paywalled article. Clicking on it will link to a legal, free version of the paper.

Web of Science Citation Databases indexes articles from highly respected journals (1900 to the present). Also recommended as a resource for interdisciplinary topics. Subscription based.

Zetoc Search searching the British Library's Electronic Table of Contents, including over 28,500 journals and more than 52 million article citations and conference papers. Also provides Zetoc Alert, a current awareness service that sends you email alerts matching the search criteria that you have provided whenever new data is loaded into the database.

FishBase is a relational database collating fish information for research scientists, fisheries managers, and zoologists offering a wide range of information on all fish species currently known in the world: taxonomy, biology, trophic ecology, life history, and uses, as well as historical data reaching back to 250 years.

FossilWorks provides query, download, and analysis tools that utilize the Paleobiology Database's large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world.

Theses

EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK’s doctoral research theses currently holding 450,000 doctoral theses to download instantly or to order a scanned copy.

Data Resources

British Oceanographic Data Centre (BODC) is a national facility, funded and maintained by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), to process, archive and distribute data concerning the marine environment.

US Department of Energy Data Explorer is a search tool for finding publicly available, scientific data funded by the US Department of Energy, covering science, technology, engineering research and data collections.

Dryad Digital Repository is a curated resource that makes the data underlying scientific publications discoverable, freely reusable, and citable. Dryad provides a general-purpose home for a wide diversity of datatypes.

The Biological Traits Information Catalogue (BIOTIC) provides scientists working within the field of benthic community ecology with an additional tool for their data analyses. Biological traits information of benthic species contained in the BIOTIC database can be downloaded and linked to benthic survey data. This may allow benthic data to be analysed not only on a taxonomic level but also on a functional level.

When using one of the databases to which the Library (NMBL) subscribes, users are obliged to abide by its terms or conditions of use.

General rules

Use of the databases is for academic research, study, private use and teaching only.

The databases may not be used for commercial research. Students on work placements may not use the databases subscribed to by NMBL for work of significant benefit to their employer.

Copyright regulations must be observed at all times. You may not download whole issues of journals or multiple copies of journal articles from full text databases (e.g. Science Direct), provide print or electronic copies of material to anyone, or republish any content without permission.

Failure to abide by the terms of use of the databases may result in loss of access to electronic resources.

If you have any queries about terms of use please contact the library.

Information on British Copyright law

Copyright for students, researchers and lecturers

Unless used under a copyright exception or licensed under a Creative Commons licence, anyone wishing to use an image owned by the MBA must submit a formal request and agree to the MBA’s terms of use. Users must also clear any copyright in the original material if this is necessary for publication or use.

The MBA will not usually charge for permission to publish images for use in not-for-profit publications. Fees for using MBA images in any format in for-profit publications or broadcasts will be negotiated based on how you want to use them. Please contact us for further information permissions@mba.ac.uk.

Reproduction of material from the NMBL or MBA Archive Collection

The NMBL is able to provide reproductions of certain material from the NMBL and MBA Archive Collection under certain conditions. Please be aware that the NMBL does not necessarily hold the copyright on the items held in its collections and that responsibility lies with the researcher to obtain the appropriate permissions and conform to the laws of fair dealings, moral rights, copyright and intellectual property rights. The researcher is also responsible for the payment of any additional fees that may be demanded by the holder of the copyright for reproduction and/or use of material held at the NMBL. All reproductions of material from the NMBL and MBA Archive Collection are non-exclusive.

For personal use and research

When the NMBL can provide reproductions of material held in its collections, a request must be made by the researcher to NMBL staff by filing in a copyright declaration (form available on request). You will not be able to make further copies of the reproductions provided. Reproduction charges on request.

Please note that the NMBL will not provide digital copies for personal use.

For publication and commercial purposes

The NMBL can provide, under certain conditions, digital copies of material from the MBA Archive Collection to be used for publication and commercial purposes. Charges are available on request. For more information, please contact us: permissions@mba.ac.uk.

Request permission for using MBA content

Information on British Copyright law

The Marine Biological Association conducts, promotes and supports scientific research into all aspects of life in the sea. We're working with our ever-growing membership to provide a clear and independent voice on behalf of the marine biological community